Today it is known as "modified ECT" - the modification is the use of anaesthesia, which did not exist in Hahnemann's day. The double blind trials show that the patients who were simply aneasthetised did as well as those who were actually shocked in addition to being aneasthetised. So then you have to ask - which is the most beneficial? The aneasthesia, the shock - or the attention? The focussed attention which is intent on shocking people out of their depressed state. This sounds to me like punishment - or terrorising. It is certainly NOT gentle or permanent - neither is it particularly rapid.
The idea of ECT grew out of the misapprehension that people with epilepsy did not suffer from depressive illness. This is clearly not the case. That it continues to be used in these modern times is baffling - it beggars belief, especfially when allopathy prides itself on "rational" and "scientific" trials. ECT does not stand up to scrutiny at any level. THat patients benefit from it is not a good reason for it to be continued - placebo was /is just as good - and safer!
Liz
Chua Ching Yee wrote:
Dear Liz Hennel
Thank you for your reply. Your views coincide with what another homeopath
has told me, though I understand that many patients have benefited from this
treatment. Hahnemann in §286 said that it does "great damage to patients"
but did not elaborate. However, the way ect is administered today must be
more sophisticated than in his time. I guess it still boils down to
individual susceptibility.
Ching Yee
on 26/5/05 4:00 pm, Liz Hennel at
liz_hennel@yahoo.com wrote:
Benefits - unproven - when subjected to so-called double blind trials,
no-one knows why it "works". Perhaps it is because it colludes with the
depressed patients' delusion of being unworthy - or of their desire to be
punished - again as part of their illness.
Side effects include intellectual damage - it is rarely used for people of
academic backgrounds - and it certainly affects memory. Some patients have
reported strange bodily sensations some time after the last "treatment" -
usually dismissed as delusional - but as no-one I know is capable of truly
experiencing another's' body this may be a gross injustice.
ECT is not popular in the UK thank goodness. I would have concerns for a
patient with a history of ECT, as I think it may affect their ability to
respond to homeopathic remedies - their energetic fields have been scrambled
by this violent treatment and we have no way of knowing what that means for
the Vital Force. Of course it is also about individual susceptibility and
the strength of the Vital Force in the first instance.
You will have gathered I am not a fan of ECT. I should also say I trained in
psychiatry some 30 years ago in the UK. I have seen one or two patients who
benefited from it - but still question this treatments' place. I also have
a history of depressive illness - I would not want this treatment. Indeed,
my episodic depressions have been managed for the last 20 years solely by
homeopathy, and have always responded more quickly and gently to this
modality - with much longer gaps in between episodes - several years rather
than months.
Chua Ching Yee wrote:
Hello list
Would like to have your opinion on the benefits and side-effects of ect.
Also, how will it affect the susceptibility of the patient?
Thanks.
Ching Yee
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